BorderLine / גבולי

One of the most interesting moments of the museum is the period in-between exhibitions. An exhibition closes, an exhibition opens. And what happens in between? The museum changes its face, it undresses and gets ready.

Today, Beit Ha'ir museum is preparing for the new exhibition "Isolated Moments from a Cycle" by the London based fashion house BOUDICCA. The wall papers that covered the galleries, the photographs, videos, installations, mannequins and designer clothes that were displayed in "Borderline" exhibition have been removed. The museum has been undressed.

Before the museum doors open for a new exhibition, something occurs in the museum, something that provokes thoughts on the in-between state and raises the question – is the current state of the museum no less interesting than the exhibitions in it? The scraped off walls reveal the different layers of past exhibitions all mixed together: Dan Reisinger aside Wayne Horse and de Castelbajac. Something interesting is created.

I was born in Hoevelaken the Netherlands, at this moment I live and work in Arnhem The Netherlands ?

When and why did you start designing, creating

At Artez instutute of Arts, Arnhem, NL 2003-2007

Your art works are really brilliant. You're not only a photographer but also a installation artist. How did you become a photographer and a installation artist? What was your major in college?

I studied autonomous arts. It’s a free department where you can work with all the mediums you want.

Tell me about your works <Origin of the Beginning>. How did you start this work?

When I was thinking about my self portraits I was trying to find out where my fixation with materials and structures came from. I decided to go back to my youth, and recreated the personal environment where the obsession started.

orogong of beginning, 2011

How long did it take to finish the installation? And Did you do that all by yourself?

Could you tell me about the process

I worked on this project for 7 months and had some help during this period, but most of it I did myself. It was really hard work, as I had to finish everything in time for the exhibition.

I know that <Origin of the Beginning> is based on your boyhood memory between the ages of 8-14. Why did you choose this time of memory? Was there any special experience or memorable accident?

When I was a child I used to spend a lot of time in my bedroom all by myself, and I was always experimenting with materials. I took three elements from these memories and built the three rooms around them.” On one side of the room the balls form a perfect structure, but the pattern slowly becomes very chaotic. It recalls a recurring nightmare I used to have, about balls that were rolling in neat patterns, but slowly turned into a mayhem. I always tried to bring structure to it, but I couldn't. It was about losing control. I still have that feeling: I always want to be in control. That's what this work is about too: gaining control on my environment, and by doing so, also trying to gain control on life.”

You used 30,000 wooden blocks, balls, slats. You've been using various materials in your works such as stone, tape, light etc. And this time you choose wood. Is there any particular reason?

With Origin of the Beginning I used brown wood. These works are about
the past. Wood is not a new material but has a history itself. The
soft brown colour refers to the past. So it works really good to
describe the feeling I was looking for, old, makeable, dark, history, etc.

In your art works, most fascinate thing is "the Express Method". You're using wood but they have different shape blocks, balls, slats. Why?

The blocks stand for symmetry and control. Origin of the Beginning 1 is about organizing everything around you, putting everything in place. You see the struggle to glue all the blocks straight. If the blocks are skewed, you see it immediately as the blocks symmetrical. That’s what I like, my struggle to make it perfect. And of course it isn’t.

“I used to have a cage exactly like that. At a certain age I really wanted to have a rat, but I felt bad about locking it up in a cage. So I insisted on keeping my rat in a very big cage. A friend of my parents built it. This cage symbolizes a fixation of ideas. It had to happen like that. There was no way the rat was going to live in a small cage. No way.”

The slats refer to my obsessive thinking at that time, there was just one truth.

How do you value Photography, Installation, Video? And what kind of meaning do these medium have to you? Why do you use 3 media at the same time?

I think it’s interesting that every medium adds his own value to the artwork. The photographs are meant as a registration. The video captures a happening from the performance. The installation is there to smell the wood and see it from different angles and you become part of the performance.